


Better Conditions

by xpityx



Series: The Rags of Time [5]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-24 02:12:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14945675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: Thomas bowed formally as they stopped just short of Miss Scott and her guards. He could feel James’ amusement from beside him, but there seemed little else to do in the face of Miss Madi Scott and the command she held over all around her.--Part of my Rags of Time series, but probably makes sense by itself.





	Better Conditions

**Author's Note:**

> Jeez this was hard to write. Beta'd by my babe [SlumberousTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlumberousTrash/pseuds/SlumberousTrash).
> 
> Please heed the tags.

 

_Fear is the cheapest room in the house_

_I would like to see you living_

_In better conditions._

Hafiz

 

 

The Walrus, September 1715

 

_It wasn’t being held down, although that didn't help. It wasn't even the pain._

 

_It was when they ignored his pleas to stop, that’s when he fell into a nightmare he thought he’d left behind long ago. ‘Please no, I don’t want this,’ hadn’t had any effect then either. Neither had crying, screaming, blood or injury, so one would think that he would be handling this with more grace, similar as it was to other horrors he’s borne, but he just couldn’t seem to swim up out of the dark this time._

 

_Every time he caught sight of the finger shaped bruises on his wrist he was transported back. The wary looks and delicate treatment of that crew was that of the other boys at the orphanage. They looked at him the same way: as if it was catching. Better you than us, those looks said._

 

_He’d thought, for once, he’d had some measure of control over his life. But it all seemed to be slipping away from him and he was once again, trapped in a story he couldn't escape or control._

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

The room seemed simply furnished at first glance, but beyond the gathering of people crowded into the small room there were glimpses of shelves lining the walls, overflowing with books. A women stood regally near the centre of the room, and the two men directly flanking her watched them enter with sharp-eyed fervour. These were not ordinary guards: protection bought for an hourly wage, or protection bought by fear and tyranny. They believed truly in the women they guarded, and were all the more dangerous for it.

 

Thomas fought down his instinctual unease: if only they knew how he had once benefited from the pain and suffering of those like them, he could not imagine that they would be so gracious as to allow him near their Queen.

 

He bowed formally as they stopped just short of Miss Scott and her guards. Thomas could feel James’ amusement from beside him, but there seemed little else to do in the face of Miss Madi Scott and the command she held over all around her. She tilted her head and smiled slightly in acknowledgement of his gesture, and then opened her arms to offer James an embrace. James went easily to her. It was a joy to see him accept affection from another, and he was amazed that a man who had had so much taken from him still found the strength to love.

 

“You look well,” the Queen said as James stepped back to Thomas’ side, “And I hear that you have been busy.” She included Thomas in the statement, and he felt both the pull of her amusement and an attendant impulse to earn further favour from her. Lord in Heaven, how did he so often find himself in the presence of such people? He occasionally mused that James was Proteus, god of elusive sea change, reborn into mortal flesh. Well, here was Nemesis, _much revered, of boundless sight, alone rejoicing in the just and right_. And on the tails of that thought: Miranda would have loved her.

 

“We tried to get word to you, but no-one would deliver our letters,” James was saying. Which had been unsurprising, but it had still saddened him.

 

Madi smiled again at James, seeming honestly happy to see him. From the way he had spoken of her Thomas had known that he held great affection for her, but he was pleased to see that affection returned in equal measure. He liked her already. How could he not, when she so obviously saw the good in James.

 

“Well I am here now, and glad of it,” she said, and at her gesture people began leaving the room. “We will speak alone,” she added, and nodded for James and Thomas to sit at the table with her. Tea was brought in mismatched china by a slim young man who glanced nervously at James, then also left them.

 

Thomas poured for them all while James made needless introductions. It was clear that Silver had told Miss Scott all that James had told him, and eventually James had been able to speak of Madi to Thomas, though he still spoke little of John Silver.

 

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintance,” she said.

 

“And I yours,” Thomas replied, “and I sincerely hope that our efforts here in Nassau meet your approval. We also have a little of the cache left over and we hope that it will help to further your cause.”

 

She was surprised, he saw. Perhaps more that it was Thomas offering the money, than that the money was being offered at all.

 

“My original vision for Nassau’s emancipation was limited indeed,” he continued, “limited to the point of atrocity. I can do nothing to redress those offenses, but I - we - wish to aid you in any way we can.”

 

Madi nodded in acknowledgement. He could see that she was not the type of person to offer false reassurances for past wrongs, but he had sought none so he was glad when she instead began to discuss in detail the effects that buying the plantations had wrought on Nassau, and how she thought they could progress their plans.

 

“You really think there is a market for produce that has not been made with slave labour?” James asked, once they had been talking for an hour or more.

 

“I do,” Madi confirmed, “and Max’s sources confirm it. She had made a strong ally of Mrs Guthrie, and the Quaker movement in Philadelphia have already made orders for rice and sugar cane from us. We thought we would not have buyers at first, then we soon realized that we have the opposite problem: we do not have sufficient labour to work the fields. Too many have suffered too much to return, even as free men and women. However, my contacts within the pirates and privateers will hopefully provide willing hands to work the fields and boiling houses. I have brought people from Jamaica who can teach those newly freed here other skills if they so wish, and we will never be short of dock workers.”

 

Thomas glanced quickly at James at the mention of pirate contacts, but his face was schooled to blankness. Madi must have been thinking something similar, as she added, “there is another subject that I wish to speak of.”

 

“I don’t want to discuss him,” James stated instantly, already tense.

 

Thomas reached under the table for his hand and James captured his in a tight grip.

 

Miss Scott kept her silence, so it was Thomas that said, “I think you do. I think you want to hear if he is well or not at the very least.”

 

“He left you there. He could have told me the second he knew but he left you there,” James replied, something like grief in his voice.

 

Thomas shook his head. “He returned you to me, for which I can never express how grateful I am, selfishly, because I know how much it cost you. How much it cost both of you,” he said, acknowledging Miss Scott who was watching them calmly. “But he sent six men to kill you. For that, I cannot forgive him.”

 

“I have survived worse,” James replied with grim humour and a worrying lack of self preservation.

 

Thomas just continued to look at him until the humour washed from his face.

 

“I know you would forgive him more quickly than he deserves, and I love you for the capacity you have for such. However, unless you wish me to stay, I will leave you to your conversation. I respect any decision you make, but I think it would be best if I and my anger were elsewhere for it.”

 

James nodded shortly and tilted his head up for a chaste kiss with no regard for who might be watching.

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

“Does he know? About Nassau, about Jamaica?” James couldn’t imagine her trusting him which such information, but the thought of him again having access to their plans chilled him.

 

She shook her head. “He may have heard rumours, but no more than any other white man. None of my people would have spoken to him: we have learnt our lesson when it comes to trusting John Silver.”

 

“But you still care about him.”

 

“Of course. As do you.” He looked at her in exasperation, she could have least done him the favour of making it a question. She looked back, mischief warming her eyes, before sobering again.

 

“He is… he is not himself,” she continued.

 

James half laughed. “And who is he when he _is_ himself?” he asked, bitterly.

 

“He misses you, and I think you would both sleep easier for having seen each other again.”

 

James struggled for moment for an adequate reply. “He was the one who sent me away.”

 

“I don’t think he knew, before he did. I think he thought that I was his everything.”

 

He shifted in his seat, wishing he had asked Thomas to stay after all.

 

“What exactly do you think he was ignorant of?”

 

“That I only hold up half his sky.”

 

He looked down at his hands, folded on the table in front of him. The feeling that pierced his breast was both pleasure and pain, he didn’t know how to categorize it so he deflected the conversation back to Madi instead.

 

“Is that what you want to be to him?” he asked.

 

“No.”

 

He smiled a little at her bluntness: he had missed her.

 

“I thought I was getting a partner,” she continued, “someone to share the weight of responsibility with me. It was what he had done with you, after all. Aside from what he took from us,” she paused to draw an uneven breath, “I cannot be that for him. But I loved him, and I will always be his friend.”

 

“How did he take that?”

 

“Badly.”

 

James smiled fully then, and Madi smiled back. There was little else they could do, under the circumstances. They both loved John Silver, and had both lost much to him, to his love of them.

 

“I’m sorry, I know it is a lot to ask. If you cannot see him then I will understand, but I am worried about him.”

 

Thomas was visible behind her shoulder through the warped glass, where he seemed to be inspected the garden at the back of the house. Hopefully he was only looking rather than attempting to prune anything. He had so far killed every plant he’d touched.

 

“He knew about Thomas, days before the Spanish came.”

 

“I know, and I don’t expect you to forgive him -  he certainly does not expect that - but to see you alive, to see you happy. I think that would go some way to healing this wound that he has inflicted upon himself.”

 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see him again, he could admit that much to himself, it was just that he was afraid Thomas had the right of it: he would forgive Silver for all that he had done because he didn’t know how to love someone halfway. He had declared Silver his friend, and thus he would remain. He was certain that made him an idiot of the highest order.

 

Thomas was not going to be impressed.

 

Madi, obviously sensing his acquiescence, stood and dropped a kiss onto his forehead.

 

“You’re a good man, James McGraw. I will have word sent to him.”

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

James looked up at the sound of a horse coming down the path. Thomas wasn’t due back until tomorrow, having gone to visit one of the neighbouring farms for a few days leaving James to tend to their small homestead. Whoever was coming was not in any hurry by the sound of it, so he had time to fasten his sword belt before going out to the front porch to meet them.

 

A grey mare was carefully picking her way down the path, Long John Silver astride her.

 

He had given his consent to the meeting three months ago, but when Madi had visited in the meanwhile she had not mentioned him once, most likely mindful of Thomas’ feelings on the matter.

 

He stood on the porch and Silver swung down from the horse and tied her up. He was using his crutch rather than his wooden leg, but he was a little more unsteady with it than James remembered him being. He looked nearly as tired as he had last time they’d seen each other, when the world had been ending around them.

 

He reached into a saddlebag to pull out a hefty jug of what James assumed to be liquor, then made he way to the bottom of the steps where he stood looking up at James, his face a blank mask.

 

James regarded him for a moment before nodding his uncertain welcome, and stepping back so he could proceed him into the house. He knew himself for a fool for even letting Long John Silver get this far, but he would not trust him to give him his back again, so perhaps he had learnt something from his former mistakes.

 

As Silver limped up the steps, jug in hand, he could smell the cheap rum on him, which explained the unsteadiness. He made his way through the house, James close behind. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to his surroundings, he just kept going until he hit the back door, which he opened and stepped through. There was a wide deck out there, with a few spindly chairs that had been James’ sad first attempts at woodwork. Silver ignored these though and sat directly on the back step, uncorking the jug and taking a deep swill.

 

James sighed a little to himself and went to fetch them two cups, which he passed to Silver as he sat down on the opposite side of the steps. They drank like that for a while, as the light started its slow progression from afternoon to dusk. James wondered if either of them were going to say anything at all, and what Thomas would do if he were to come back to find him drunk on the back stoop with John Silver. Well, he’d probably shoot Silver and give James a good kick for his stupidity. James had never learnt how to stop loving someone though, so here he was.

 

After about an hour, Silver got unsteadily to his feet and went around the side of the house to take a piss, presumably. Once he returned, he gulped down what was left in his mug and seemed to come to some decision.

 

“Has she been here? Madi?”

 

“Yes, once or twice.”

 

Silver nodded to himself, as if he were confirming something he already knew.

 

“I want to tell you something,” he said and James waited, a little wary of whatever he wanted to confess that involved him having to drink half a bottle of rum first.

 

“I think, I think for a long time I told myself that it was a story,” he started, looking out somewhere past the garden and the dust. “That it was something that happened to someone else. Then they took my leg.”

 

James had moved a little closer along the step, suddenly sure he didn’t want to know this, but equally sure that Silver, that John, needed to tell him.

 

“They told me that they would look after me, and then they held me down and hurt me, and it was… it was so like what had happened before that I was _there_ again and I…” He wiped at his face. “I don’t think I’d ever really thought about it, I’d just shut it all away. When I woke up, and there were handprints on my arms where they’d held me down, and when I took a piss, I could see the same bruises on my thighs and….” He stopped, and carefully poured himself more rum. James gave up hoping that this wasn’t what he feared it was and carefully moved himself so he was sat by John’s side, who slumped against him slightly.

 

“How long?” he asked when it became clear he wasn’t going to say anything further.

 

“Five years.”

 

“How old were you?”

 

“About seven or eight, when it started.”

 

James nodded, what could he possibly say?

 

“I just, I wanted to write my own story for once.”

 

He started to cry then, first silently, then ugly sobs that shook him. James reached to pull him into an embrace, wary in case it was the opposite of what he needed, but John went into his arms willingly, hands fisted into his shirt. They stayed like that for a little while, James fighting back his own tears, before John started to speak again.

 

“Please,” he begged, still clinging to James, “She left me and I don’t know what to do without her. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I need you to help me, please.”

 

James held him until he could be quiet, then nudged him to his feet, stifling his own groan at being sat in one place for so long. He led him to the guest room, where John sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

 

“Can you sleep?”

 

He nodded, but didn’t look up.

 

“Do you need me to stay?” James asked.

 

There was a pause, and then John shook his head.

 

Well, it’s not like he didn’t know where James was sleeping if he changed his mind, he thought, and made sure to leave his own door agar.

 

He lay awake for a long time listening for the sound of uneven footsteps outside his door, but none ever came.

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

John was, surprisingly, awake when he stumbled into the main room the next morning, not long after dawn. He looked the picture of misery: hunched over the table, snarled hair hanging in his face.

 

James made tea and porridge in lieu of conversation. He was stirring the pot when John seemed to come back to himself a little.

 

“God I miss her,” he started, seemingly continuing a conversation that had perhaps been taking place in his head. “She is so sure of herself. Everything just,” he gestured widely, “just seems to fall into place before her. She never need look where she’s going, because she remakes the world so there is solid ground wherever her foot falls.”

 

“You know that’s not true,” James replied, measuring them each a portion of porridge as he did so.

 

“I don’t think I do though. I half believed what I said about you and the storm, about your ability to control even the weather. Why would I believe any less of her, of a Queen?”

 

James put a half full bowl in front of him.

 

“Eat.”

 

John grimaced but did as he was told.

 

James was helping himself to another cup of tea, content to let John steer the conversation as and when he saw fit, when he spoke again.

 

“Was she happy, when you saw her?” he asked, voice low.

 

“She seemed content,” James replied, truthfully.

 

“That’s what I wanted. It’s what I want, but I…” he stopped, and put a hand over his face, his breathing wet and laboured. James moved to sit next to him and, when it was clear he was struggling to get himself under control, put his hand over John’s where it lay on the table in front of him. He instantly gripped back hard, and James let him hang on.

 

“ _Christ_. I feel about as fucking sane as I did when I was dying of fucking thirst.”

 

“So not very?”

 

John let something that might have started as a laugh but ended as a sob.

 

“Part of me just wants to walk away from all this. To start over somewhere as I’ve done before but I’ve never...” He shook his head. “How do you stand this? Is everyone walking around with this grievous wound inside them, bleeding out as those they love hurt and suffer?”

 

“I believe that’s called ‘caring’, and it would be easier to bear if you didn’t hurt those you love,” James replied, pressing gently on the hand that still gripped his. John seemed to realise then that he had not let go and did so hastily, folding both hands into his lap.

 

James lent back a little in his chair, giving him more space, but John appeared to have retreated into his own mind, staring into the middle distance.

 

“I can’t stay here,” he stated, but James heard the question nonetheless.

 

“You could. I would have to talk to Thomas, but we could find room for you if that’s what you wished.”

 

“I want to help.”

 

James took a breath before answering. “That might be more difficult. The two people whose trust you would need to gain may not be so inclined to give it.”

 

“Yours and Madi’s, I know.”

 

“Madi’s and Thomas’,” James corrected.

 

John finally looked at him then, something raw in his face.

 

“I cannot forgive, not now and maybe not ever. But I believe you would never again put your own happiness above the wishes of those you care for.”

 

“‘Continue faithful to one who has broken faith,’” John said, almost under his breath. He must have caught the look of surprise on James’ face as he added, almost defensively, “I’ve had a lot of time on my hands lately.”

 

He had never told him the importance of the book he was quoting, and yet it was the same book that had formed a tether that had bound James to his past, to Thomas and Miranda. To hear it now, unprompted and unexpected was… James took a breath and then continued from where John had left off.

 

“‘For all that is good has not vanished utterly from among men, but there still remains among us a vestige of pristine virtue.’”

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

It was another month before he saw Madi again. She came to meet with Max as often as she could, but each visit held its own dangers. Even in a place free from slavery, Madi was a wanted women.

 

Thomas had again politely excused himself to his books after they had eaten, his tolerance for any talk of John still low. James hadn’t pushed him on the matter, aware that it was his own shortcomings that allowed him to tolerate such a grievous crime.

 

“I heard you had a visitor a little while ago,” Madi ventured.

 

“Yes, we talked.”

 

She tilted her head in reply, and James shifted a little under her gaze.

 

“He is lost without you.”

 

She shook her head at him, a little surprised perhaps. “You are a good man and a good friend.”

 

“Not many would agree with you on that.”

 

“I know, but not many people agree with me on many subjects. What is one more point of contention?” she smiled.

 

James smiled back, but he could not shake the memory of John crying.

 

“I thought perhaps that seeing you happy and whole would soothe him, but I can see that you are more worried than ever.”

 

“He was… upset.”

 

Madi raised her eyebrows. “That sounds like it is an understatement. Did something happen?”

 

“No, he just… He would benefit from having a purpose again.”

 

“And you think he deserves our help with finding such?” she asked, surprised.

 

“No. No I don’t, but this isn’t about what is deserved. You cannot imagine the horrors I have wreaked, and yet here I sit: my lover returned to me, my friend at my table. If I have been given a second, third, fourth chance, then the very least I owe to those around me is the same. And despite it all, he is still my friend.”

 

“I think each time that I have found the depth of you, of your compassion, but you surprise me anew.”

 

He looked down at where his hands were clasped in his lap, unsure how to react to the praise.

 

“I think you and Thomas should meet with him,” he replied, “and decide for yourselves if he can be part of our plans going forward. There’s no doubt he would be an asset to us. And… I think he knows you and he will never be what you were.” He wasn’t sure if it was he place to say such a thing, but he felt it needed to be said.

 

“We will meet with him if that is what you want.” Thomas had come back up to the table, quietly enough that they both looked up in surprise when he spoke. “That is, if my lady allows it,” he added, making an elegant gesture in Madi’s direction.

 

“For you, James, we will try for you, but trust has to be earned.”

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

A month later, John got down from his horse and came over to sit on the step next to James. James had been sitting there since the early morning, sipping tea that Thomas replenished every hour or so. He offered John his cup, but he made a slight gesture of refusal.

 

“We could go back on the account,” John suggested in lieu of a greeting.

 

James snorted and looked sideways at him.

 

“You’d be the dashing Captain with your lover waiting on the jetty for you, and I'd be your plucky yet troubled Quartermaster,” he continued, not looking away from the vegetable garden that sat in front of the house.

 

“Does she know?” James asked, after a pause.

 

John shook his head. “No.”

 

“Do you mean to tell her?”

 

“What could I possibly say? What justification could I make?”

 

“Don’t think of it like that. You can’t make her forgive you, you can’t make any of us forgive you, but you can offer some meaning to your actions.”

 

“I was raped as a boy, so I destroyed you and your people’s greatest chance of freedom?”

 

James leant his weight a little against John’s side.

 

“I wouldn’t put it like that, no.”

 

John huffed a half laugh, and leaned further into James.

 

“I don’t want to go in there. I don’t want to face them.”

 

“I know, but I will be with you.”

 

John looked up at him then, and James offered a small smile.

 

“You haven’t you know,” James continued, “you and I were important, but not that important: the Maroon Camp had been running long before we ever arrived. There have been rebellions against slavery since the moment white men in ships arrived on the West Coast of Africa. There is always hope.”

 

John narrowed his eyes at him. “What are you all planning to do?”

 

James just smiled. “The question you should be asking is, ‘what have you done?’”

 

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [tumblr](http://xpityx.tumblr.com/) where I'm sobbing over Black Sails with anyone who will listen to me.
> 
> There's also a tiny fic set in this verse in my drabbles/outtakes fic, which can be found [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14590239/chapters/34405259). It's also where any tiny prompts/ficlets from this series will be posted in the future as well.


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